One last point about this topic: countries and their politics don't exist in isolation. It is easy to sit back in the US and say, well, if people in Bangladesh or Iran don't like their corrupt, backward government, they are responsible for changing it. but you then have to ignore the many, many times that people in countries all over the world did organize, vote and change their governments. And then to watch the people they chose assassinated, or run out by US forces, or other powerful outsiders. After that, years of "unrest" and civil war as people try to get rid of the dictator installed/supported by the outsiders.

The people have bravely faced down dictators or colonial armies to elect a Mossadeq, a Lumumba, an Arbenz or Bosch or Allende, or progressive leaders in Afghanistan. Then they watch as their country is invaded, their capital city bombed flat, and their chosen leaders are overthrown. In almost every case above, it was because the leaders were trying to do things like make laws more fair, educate women, distribute land to impoverished farmers, enforce regulations against foreign corporations. The US called it communism, and sometimes it was, like in Afghanistan. We ignored the fact that the dictators we put in place were evil bastards like the Shah of Iran or Mobutu Sese Seko or Ferdinand Marcos.

These guys stole everything not nailed down, controlled the media, tortured and killed their opposition, or forced them into exile. The socieities lost the educated middle class, the intellectuals, feminists, writers, political organizers. So, it is not very surprising that most of these places are having a hard time getting their acts together. And in places (Afghanistan, Iran) where the opposition used something like fundamentalist Islam to rally the people, it is not surprising that we see the mullahs or the Taliban taking power.